


Protection

by page_runner



Series: Pretzels [3]
Category: Leverage
Genre: Developing Relationship, Multi, but she's getting there, i do love alliteration, newly minted OT3, parker's got some things to work out, post-rundown job, the morning after, they're all getting there, we've reached an even angst:fluff ratio now, why do you ask?, why yes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-02
Updated: 2017-07-02
Packaged: 2018-11-22 11:17:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11379105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/page_runner/pseuds/page_runner
Summary: I need to be careful, she thought, but couldn’t settle on a reason why, just that it would be easier if she could get a clear read. But his armor was off now. He no longer rattled when she got too close. His armor was off and she couldn’t quite find the Eliot underneath.





	Protection

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, Parker's turn! Follows Pretzels and Plans. 
> 
> All the hugs in the WORLD to ferociousqueak for beta'ing my increasingly long ramblings and pointing improbable kissing scenarios.

This was not the first time she’d watched Eliot sleep.

That was long past, in a sweaty little town near the Mexican border, looking up from fiddling with a rig to find him sacked out on the motel bed, the book he’d been reading across his chest. The spine rose and fell with a regularity that caught her off guard. He picked it up again fifty-five minutes later. It shouldn’t have mattered, shouldn’t be caught in her memory of that job, along with him crossing the police line, dropping all pretense of the con while he asked for permission to protect his crew. Neither of them ever said a word about either of those moments.

A lot of words were said about her going back for the orphans, soon afterwards, but her crew came for her anyway, and on the flight back her head had found his shoulder, and neither of them ever said a word about that either.

The first time she’d looked up to find Hardison face down on his computer, she’d rolled her eyes at his unprofessionalism and marveled at his stupidity, trying to ignore the warmth that spread from the pit of her stomach. He had no qualms powering down around others, a level of trust that made the back of her neck itch. He’d run full throttle until he crashed, hard, wherever he was, expecting someone to poke him awake if he was needed. For years now, if he was around when the crash came, Eliot would find something to rant about, banged pots and pans in the kitchen, or bumped into Hardison’s chair until he started up in bleary alarm, mumbling something insulting and frequently incoherent about Eliot’s parentage. The ensuing argument usually ended with Hardison snoring on the couch and Eliot resuming his cooking session at a much lower decibel level.

Parker used to leave him there—if sleeping in a rig was comfortable for her, maybe that was his preferred position—but now redirecting him away from the computer had certain benefits, even if her taking over that job had left Eliot banging his pots again.

The phone in his hand buzzed. She jumped slightly at the noise, but Eliot took several more seconds to register it before rolling out of Alec’s loosened grasp to blink at the screen, then up at her, comprehension lagging. _You’ve done the same for me,_ she was ready to say, defensive of being caught standing guard, because that was his job, but he was already sinking back under, lips barely beginning to form his objection. She reached out and his eyelashes fluttered closed against her fingertips. Dismissing the alarm, she settled in to wait for the next one.

Alec thought they’d won, but he didn’t know how many times she’d almost run, because this was too big, too close, and she stood to lose too much. If she ran, at least she could protect herself. Eliot wouldn’t think like that. He protected himself as a function of protecting others. She’d struggled to understand that, at first. Why bother helping people who would hurt you...or wouldn’t care if someone else did. What made them worth the effort?

Nate, he’d found people worth the effort, proved to her what Eliot had forgotten and rediscovered, but sometimes it still scared her, caring. It had been so much easier after she’d figured out how to turn it off, lock the hurt away, protect herself from that part of her. She’d been reluctant to rediscover that so many years later, but it had happened anyway.

Eliot would say that wasn’t being honest. That you had to know yourself to control yourself, and control enabled everything else, including protecting others. Eliot was allowed to say things like that because he made them true. And anyway, after he said something like that, he’d growl about some tiny thing, and that was Eliot’s way of protecting himself from them. Knowing yourself was one thing, but letting others know you was something entirely different.

Did she know him? The Eliot she thought she knew wouldn’t have agreed to come back to bed hours ago. Wouldn’t be asleep right now, trusting Hardison’s idea and her guard, ceding control and risking them, all in one go.

She should be using this time to plan, like Eliot said, it didn’t have to be wasted, especially not on the stupid circular thoughts spinning around her head like buzzards above roadkill. Though Eliot also said watching people sleep was creepy, but she didn’t think she was being creepy right now, she was being...protective. Keeping watch over her boys.

He looked small, separated now from the larger shadowy bulk of Hardison. On the subway, he’d seemed huge and unstoppable, especially not by something as small as a bullet, though logically she knew that wasn’t true, just as logically she’d accepted the decision they’d come to, in the quick nod they gave each other before she’d turned to Alec with a kiss for luck. Eliot was their shield; they would not insult him by debating that fact.

Udall was down and out when they’d returned to the car. Eliot was down too, but not out: he’d dragged himself into a sitting position and raised his eyebrows in a quick question. _We all dead?_ But they weren’t, none of them were; they couldn’t be stopped by something so small as a bullet, a virus, a bomb.

She’d noticed he didn’t sleep that night in the hotel. Even with Vance’s influence, D.C. wasn’t entirely safe and he’d stood his watch. But that wasn’t all. Eliot had rules. No feet on the coffee table. No geek spirals. No throwing crowbars at people’s heads. No conning your crew. No kissing your crew. No scaring your crew with your own mortality.

It wouldn’t have scared _her_. Sleep wasn’t the same as death, and that’d be stupid— _and anyway in a few minutes the alarm will go off and he’ll wake up and growl at me for staying up, so I didn’t need to poke him now, and if I focus, I can separate their breathing rhythms and monitor both of them just in case—_ It would have scared Alec, though, and if Alec was scared he’d call Sophie, and then Eliot would have the whole crew scared and half of them fussing and he didn’t want that.

So what did he want? Not something she knew how to steal.

 _He wants us safe._ That was another of Eliot’s rules, and he’d broken it tonight. They’d sutured it back together, but with the wrong motion it could tear...

Not helping.

She squinched her eyes shut, and shook her head, hard. Plan. She should plan. For what? _In case he decides to protect us by leaving. If I plan, I can make him stay..._

Still not helping.

That wasn’t allowed, and it was probably wrong, and he wouldn’t leave. Not _leave_ leave, not like that. He’d just—return the pretzels, on the grounds that protecting them was more important.  And Eliot would close up again, tighter this time, and for once, she wouldn’t know how to find a way in. She didn’t like this—this uncertainty. It made the darkness less of a friend, and her heart had decided to start thumping for no sensible reason and she’d lost track of their breathing rhythms and maybe she should poke him, just in case?

The phone buzzed again and Eliot pulled himself out of sleep, as she exhaled, willing her heart rate to slow. He dismissed the alarm and checked to see that the next one was set before settling back down. Without growling at her once.

She listened for his breathing to even out in three, two, one…and then for another count of one hundred, matching her breaths to his steady rhythm, before she allowed her left hand to drift over and begin to trace patterns lazily across his back. He twitched slightly, but not enough to set off his internal alarms.

She was very good at not setting off alarms.

With her right hand, she lifted the phone he still held loosely, turned off Hardison’s timers and slipped it back into place, all the while continuing to trace lines across his skin. Whatever happened in the morning, she wouldn’t lose track of his breathing again tonight and maybe on a subconscious level, his brain would understand that if she was constantly poking at him then she couldn’t be dead.

That seemed to work, because it was almost exactly four hours before he stirred, barely, and murmured, “You missed an exit on that second floor plan for the Venice museums. Underwater gate, rusted padlock.” The Venice set was almost an hour gone, a finale to her trip through Europe, before she bounced over the Mediterranean to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, and then on a whim, across the Atlantic to the Met in New York.

“No clear visibility once you get out, and the _policia_ have the advantage in the canals. I didn’t miss it.” Hardison didn’t critique her early morning routes, though he liked the Guggenheim, with its spiral swirling ramp. Most of the others he didn’t recognize, arguing that he’d access the blueprints when he needed it, why waste brain processing space otherwise? To Eliot, however, the layouts would be _distinctive_ , something to be catalogued and analyzed for patterns.

“Okay,” he said, his voice blurry and relaxed in a way she couldn’t remember Eliot ever being. _Maybe if he were drugged, or bleeding out, or..._

She slipped back into the Venetian palazzo, past pigeons and guards and the rusted padlock on a gate, ignoring the faded, forgotten sign warning of danger. The air smelt of algae, salt, and mildew. She’d been right, it wasn’t a good exit. But Eliot was also right, even if he’d accepted her reasoning. She marked it swiftly with an X before returning to the surface of the memory, nose still wrinkled at the smell.

Eliot’s eyes slitted with amusement in the pre-dawn light. “What’s in the Met?”

 _Rotation of guards armed with tasers, three metal detectors at the entrance, security cameras in every corner… The coat and bag check has potential, but not my preferred method, with the subway access tunnels so close...wait. That’s not what he’s asking._ “To steal?”

He shifted, winced, and shifted again. “If ya want.”

She tried to picture Eliot in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, among the paintings, the historical rooms, the Egyptian artifacts, the sculptures, the— _oh. Duh_. Her prize was right next to her chosen exit. If Eliot wanted something from the Arms and Armory hall with the creepy horses and the empty knights that would mean a detour and a remap.

“What are we stealing?” If it was something large, she might need to replan.

“Up to you.”

“Tell me what you want.” She traced the balcony overlooking his favorite gallery across his spine, recalling the lines of armored horses and their riders, marching onward under bright banners.

“Set of tilting armor. Always thought that’d be fun to try.” Eliot didn’t steal things for fun. He gave her an easy smile, which didn’t make sense on his face. Not that Eliot didn’t smile, he just didn’t smile like that. To her. Vague unease curled in her stomach.

“It’s not that valuable,” she protested, but even as she said it, flavors from a meal he’d cooked for her, and her alone, danced across her tongue. There were different types of value. Clients didn’t always want money. _They should, money is security—_ her finger traced a wide path around the exit wound on Eliot’s back— _usually_ _._ But even people who had money didn’t know how to hoard it properly. They _wanted_ , sometimes such stupid things. They wanted enough to hire someone like her, like Eliot. It was a stupid reason to pay a lot of money (and even stupider if they didn’t pay), but not a stupid way to _make_ a lot of money. Though there were things neither of them would do for money, not anymore.

_“I run with them now,” he’d said._

_“We change together,” she’d said._

“Nah it’s not,” he responded, the assent as easy and empty as the smile. “What’s your score?”

His acquiescence felt like misjudging the distance of a leap, and she stumbled slightly as she answered. “Th-the cat.”

“What cat?”

“Next to the big tomb.”

“The sphinx? Why?”

“Doesn’t matter, it’s not worth the effort.” She couldn’t conceive of stealing it to sell; not that she’d been approached with an offer, but the idea inexplicably displeased her.

“We ain’t actually robbing the Met, Parker. Why d’you like the sphinx?” There, that slight exasperation. That was part of Eliot. Where was the rest of him?

The sphinx hid in plain sight. It wasn’t particularly special, as far as she knew, though actually looking it up would mean she was interested, and she _wasn’t_. People took pictures posing with it, making it easy to rifle the bags they dropped out of frame, duck behind the tomb and slip out, long before anyone noticed the absence. She’d spent some time in New York when she was younger, and most of a winter in the museum, slipping in with school groups for a warm place to spend the day. That was before Archie. The cat lay there, still and waiting and watching, and she’d practice the same, in her own corners of the place, the eyes of patrons and personnel alike sliding over her.

“It’s a cat. I’m a cat burglar,” she said finally, though that wasn’t quite correct. But Eliot didn’t feel quite correct either, so that was fair.

“What about H-Hardison?” He stumbled slightly over the name.

 _Has he ever called him Alec?_ “I haven’t asked him.”

“Nah—If you’re a cat burglar, what’s Hardison?”

“The screaming camel.”

That made him wake up. “The _what_?”

“Screaming camel. It’s less than a foot tall, easy to slip out, if you knock out the cameras and get past the glass.” Not that he was interested in the specs, or scoping out the place, or anything remotely useful. _Why even ask?_ She considered going into more detail, just to annoy him. He hadn’t been irritated at all this morning, and the realization prickled her scalp, making her squirm.

“Why that?” His weird smile turned into a perfectly Eliot smirk, as if he already knew the answer.

“Sometimes he reminds me of it.” She’d almost screamed herself, first time she’d come across it after hours, in the darkened twists and turns of the gallery. It wasn’t like the quiet cat. It voiced everything that it didn’t like, teeth bared and eyes bugging out. People were hard to read. The Cat was hard to read and she wanted to be like the Cat. But the Camel—the Camel was comforting because she knew exactly what it felt. It carried two figures on its back, one shielding the other, though from what she wasn’t sure, probably whatever the Camel was screaming about. “Would you steal one of the horses?”

He’d settled again, eyes closed, and she wanted to poke him awake and further test his Eliot-ness, to make sure it was real. “They’re just mannequins, Parker. To show off the armor.”

Which made their potential murderosity much more potent, if they ever did come alive. But that had sounded very Eliot. He would choose to steal something that had to do with horses.

 _What would Eliot look like in armor?_ Maybe Hardison could make some pictures of Eliot in armor, like the ones he’d made of her as a thief. A different thief. A magic thief that had numbered powers, which she liked because people should come with numbers and a list of traits; and hated, because if these things were written down, they could be stolen and that would be much more valuable than some old baseball card. But Eliot wouldn’t be a thief. Thieves couldn’t wear armor since it made noise, but the fighters did. _If he wore armor, maybe the bullets…_

“I’d steal the armor for you. Even with the horses.”

Eliot slitted his eyes open again. “‘preciate the offer.” Underneath her fingers, muscles shifted and tightened as his attempt to stretch ended with a low grunt and a brief flash of...fear? “You interested in digging those fingers in a little harder, darlin’?”

Maybe she’d imagined it. Or misidentified. Facial expressions were not always reliable and Eliot’s shifted constantly. She squirmed again and couldn’t resist poking him, just to test his solidity.

He raised an eyebrow, or possibly both, since his eyebrow dexterity wasn’t significant, but the other one remained trapped by the pillow. That was Eliot-ish, definitely.

“Alec says my massages are equivalent to being mauled,” she said finally.

“‘Xactly what I’m lookin’ for,” Eliot murmured, followed by an _oomph_ as she straddled his back and began kneading her fingers upward, eliciting a new set of noises from those the night before. She’d learned more distinctive Eliot sounds in the past twelve hours than in the whole past year, and that wasn’t counting the part in the middle of the night when he went all bristly and stand-offish again, because those were already cataloged extensively. She missed them now.

Her fingers were strong, and she didn’t have to be careful with him, like she did with Hardison, who flinched away from pain. She knew the surface of his skin as intimately as any safe she’d ever seduced by now: the small bump where a broken rib had healed slightly off, the twisted tear of scar tissue on one shoulder, puckered holes from older bullets than the ones she’d just stitched up. Sometimes he’d mention where the scars came from, the ones he wasn’t ashamed of. If she asked, he’d tell her about the others, but she knew better than to ask. _As if what came before would change our minds about you._ Still, Alec rarely asked about her past either and she preferred it that way. 

Now, she cataloged the scars based on their current relevance— _no wonder he likes using that side as a feint, that scar would lead to a delay on the follow through—_ and turned her attention to the muscles underneath, knotted and stiff. _Stupid. More terrible body management. Muscles don’t like long flights, or adjusting to favor injuries, or cold showers. Movement will be restricted._

Oh. That would explain the fear, if it was fear. She bit her lip and pressed her thumb into a knot gradually, increasing the pressure until Eliot let out a soft moan, and then held five seconds before increasing the pressure again. She could feel him relaxing as she repeated the process, becoming pliable in her hands. He shifted his shoulders, leaning into the knot she was working on, and somewhere in the back of her mind Archie whispered that pain was a tool. Tools were useful, but Eliot she decided would disagree. He made a point of disagreeing with Archie. And she’d seen the way Eliot greeted pain, relaxed and sometimes almost cheerful. Pain was a friend.

 _I need to be careful,_ she thought, but couldn’t settle on a reason why, just that it would be easier if she could get a clear read. If Eliot were more like that screaming camel. But his armor was off now. He no longer rattled when she got too close. His armor was off and she couldn’t quite find the Eliot underneath.

“What goes under armor?” She switched from her trigger point technique to longer strokes with the heel of her palm as she waited for him to pull himself back to the surface and register her question.

“Hauberk,” he grunted, then clarified the term. “Chain mail.”

That made sense. Still protective, offered a greater range of motion, quieter, but not silent. That was relaxed Eliot.

“Underneath the hauberk’s the gambeson,” he continued, exhaling as she worked her way up his back, avoiding the bandage on his shoulder.

“What’s that?” She’d never stolen a suit of armor before, but the ones in museums tended to be empty. Or filled with a mannequin. Sometimes, in movies, thieves would hide inside them. Alec said it was supposed to be funny and she’d laughed, but only because they were being stupid. Thieves didn’t wear armor. Thieves were sensible and ran _away_ from bullets.

“Padded fabric. Protected th’ knight from chafing. And sometimes by the time an arrow had punched through armor and mail, it’d’ve slowed down so much, it’d jus’ get tangled in the cloth.” _Maybe that’s why he likes layers._

She reached the soft skin at the nape of his neck and flexed her fingers, rendering him incapable of further speech. He groaned into the pillow instead.

Hardison echoed the groan, if not the context, rolling over to face them and muttering, “Hey you’re startin’ up without—oh god Eliot, why’re you lettin’ her do that??”

“Feels good.” That was the only viable interpretation. It came out more as _“eels guh.”_ She smirked in satisfaction.

“Parker, babe, you may have broken Eliot.”

 _Have I?_ But Hardison wasn’t being serious and Eliot wouldn’t like them thinking he was broken and she didn’t have words that could quite encompass what she thought he was. “He can’t be broken, I want pancakes.”

“Pancakes comin’ right uhhhhh...” she giggled as her fingers put a stop to any movement he’d been conceiving.

“With chocolate chips? And Nutella? And maple syrup?”

“Yes’mmm.”

“Damn woman, what kinda magic you work with those fingers?” Alec watched them, and she could read his pleasure in the curve of his lips and the heat of his eyes.

She wiggled her magic fingers in his direction, before digging them into Eliot’s back again. _Usually he insists on bananas at least. For potassium._

“You gonna let her do that regularly, man?” Hardison pushed himself upright and immediately flopped back down, like he did most mornings, rethinking the idea of getting up entirely.

“Your bed is weird, Hardison,” Eliot answered, though it wasn’t really an answer.

He yawned, apparently oblivious. “Parker likes her side as hard as possible, and I like mine nice and cush...oh. Yeah, guess that would make the middle kinda funky.” He poked the mattress. “Never hacked a bed before, but shouldn’t be that hard.” Yawning again, he stretched, much more leisurely than Eliot had. “How was the rest of the night?”

She expected Eliot to tell Hardison off for his fancy bed, but beneath her, Eliot didn’t raise his head. “Not bad,” he said, deliberately casual. “Parker says you remind her of a screamin’ camel.”

“A what now?” He’d been expecting a rant about perfectly fine, _normal_ mattresses without embedded electronics too. Alec caught her eye and jerked his head at Eliot, still face down. _He okay?_ She didn’t have anything resembling an answer to his question, much less a silent one, so she just mouthed back, _He’s Eliot,_ which didn’t feel accurate at the moment, but was nevertheless probably true. Hardison rolled his eyes and grimaced. _Screaming camel???_

She stuck her tongue out at him and he grinned and sat up to kiss the tip of it.

“Ooookay then, y’know what? I don’t wanna know. Not at all. Y’all keep up with your pain session and I’m takin’ a shower. There better be pancakes left when I get out.” He started to roll out of the bed, then paused and turned back, bending down to plant a leisurely kiss on the nape of Eliot’s neck.

“Go take your shower,” he murmured. She could feel the heat of his skin through her fingertips and the bare skin of her thighs.

Alec nibbled his way up to Eliot’s ear before whispering heavily, “As you wish.” He pulled away and sauntered toward the bathroom with a satisfied smirk for her, while Eliot’s breath stuttered and he shoved his hips against the mattress, fists clenching handfuls of sheet.

She rocked her own hips, savoring, for a moment, how effortless it was to bring him down. He was _theirs_ now.

And that...that didn’t quite...feel right. It felt good, yes, but not _right._ She stopped. Waited as he stilled. He felt more dense now, some of the coiled tension settling back into place, and the relief that accompanied the familiarity _itched_.

“Thanks, sweetheart.” His voice, roughened and lower now, scratched at her, though not quite at the itch itself, which intensified at the pet name. Alec had plenty of them for her, but Eliot didn’t. Hadn’t.

Climbing off his back disconnected her from the confusing tells she’d been reading through his skin. Less noise now, less static, less input. Her head buzzed slightly, like she’d just been _on_ , focusing on an interaction with a mark, analyzing body language, and monitoring her own, like Sophie’d taught her.

But this wasn’t a mark. This was Eliot and Eliot never made her brain buzz.

She shook her head and let the motion continue down her arms and legs, bouncing her body into movement, off the bed. It helped, moving. Eliot sat up, rolled his neck experimentally and bent with a wince, retrieving his discarded shirt from the floor and tossing it down in disgust again. It lay there, the dark brown stain clearly visible.

Everything in his duffle would also be bloodstained, after the trip they’d had. She should have stolen him something at the airport. But they were home now, and home came stocked with an entire room full of clothes for jobs. “Like we on the TARDIS,” Hardison had said when he showed it to them. She stashed plenty of clothes and other gear there, as did the rest of the team. Sophie’s contributions were mostly dresses, wigs, and shoes; Nate, his terrible suit collection. Eliot refused to call the costumes “his”—even the ones Hardison made to fit him—but he stocked it with his own clothes too, for the frequent times the ones he was wearing ended up ripped or stained.

“I’ll grab—” she started, but he shook his head and shoved himself to his feet.

“Nah, I’ll do it. Need to move some.”

She watched him leave the room, gait awkward and halting.

 _Not the only thing that’s awkward._ She headed to the bathroom for a consult.

Hardison peeked around the shower curtain. “Hey mama, you comin’ in?”

Tempting. Alec seemed as solid and reassuring as ever; the only slipperiness coming from him was soap suds. She shook her head. The puzzle of Eliot demanded solving. “He’s being weird.”

Her soapy-but-normal-weird-boyfriend retreated out of view. “I can live with that. He’s here, he’s relatively okay, and he’s where I can keep an eye on him, which go very, _very_ far in ensurin’ my peace of mind. Dude’s had a weird few days. He might need an adjustment period to figure out what he’s doin’.”

“But he doesn’t need to _do_ anything! That’s the whole point of pretzels!”

“Yeah, but you an’ me, we took it slow. Real slow, right? An’ we kinda figured this thing out step by step.”

In her lap, her fingers twined around each other. “I know. But Eliot’s done this before!” _Not like me._

“Nah, not this. Least not since Aimee, and I’ll bet that feels like a few lifetimes and a whole different person to him now. What Eliot’s been doin’ in the meantime ain’t about pretzels, and it ain’t about havin’ a partner. Not at the same time, in any case. Don’t get me wrong, I think Eliot got something he needed out of those relationships in between. Human contact that didn’t involve hittin’ something, for one. And I never seen him treat any woman, much less one of his partners without interest an’ respect. But I doubt there’s a single instance where he wasn’t pretending to be something other than what he was.”

“Eliot’s a lot of things.”

“Yes, mama, he is.” She could hear the fond smile in his voice. “And knowing Eliot, I’m sure he’s got strong ideas about which of those things he oughtta be right now.”

“All of them.” Why was that so hard for people? “He doesn’t have to choose.”

“That’s not the way he’s gonna see that, you know.”

“Well, that’s dumb.”

“No, it ain’t, Parker.” She bit her lip at the warning in his tone. “Eliot likes having control over his environment, just like you. And part of that is the control he exerts over himself.”

She knew that. “You teased him anyway.”

“Yeah, I did. Never claimed to be great at the control thing, myself. But nex’ time I’ll let him make the first move.”

“Not like me.” She’d kissed him for a tangle of reasons. Because his shoulder was warm and solid under her chin, because he didn’t tell her to leave him alone, because he agreed about the pretzels, he did, he just didn’t want to admit it, not usually. Because now wasn’t usually. Because he was tired. Because he’d protected them. Because his defenses were lowered and focused elsewhere. Because he hurt. Because he’d leaned against her in D.C., when he needed to, and in the cab, when he didn’t, but he forgot he shouldn’t, because rules were stupid. And because rules were made to be broken, because she wanted, and Alec wanted, and Eliot wanted. Because she was a thief and what she wanted she stole.

She’d mapped him out like one of her museums, compromised his security system…

“Babe?”

Hardison looked back around the curtain, concerned by her silence.

“I stole Eliot. What if he didn’t want to be stolen?”

“Well, first off, _we_ stole him.”

“ _I_ planned it. You said not to plan it and I planned it. I was _proud_ of it.” The sour taste was back in her mouth.

He turned off the shower, grabbed a towel from the rack to start drying off. She tried not to look at the fist-sized hole in the wall. “You could go ask Eliot. Y’should go ask Eliot, really.”

“He’ll tell me what he thinks I want to hear.”

“You sure we’re thinking of the same guy?”

She glared at him. “He said I could have Nutella AND chocolate chips AND maple syrup. I told you. He’s being weird.”

“Let him be weird then. The guy’s earned it and you get the sugar high of your dreams. Win-win.”

That made sense. And Alec was good at this. Just because she thought Eliot was wrong, didn’t mean something was wrong with Eliot. “Then what?”

“Dunno. There’s no planning this, girl. Just working it out as we go.”

“We’ve done jobs like that.”

“And they weren’t complete disasters, neither.”

 

In the kitchen, she watched as Eliot, who’d snagged loose jeans and a flannel button up from the Tardis Wardrobe, got out flour, milk, eggs, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, the white baking stuff, and the other white baking stuff, and of course, the chocolate chips. Something about his movements eased, and it had nothing to do with the muscles she’d loosened. He began to hum something simple, but stopped when he saw her face.

“Somethin’ wrong, darlin’?”

The pancakes were going to be wrong. Eliot could pull off a decent lift and stow ( _much better than Hardison, not quite as smooth as Sophie_ ), but if his ability to sneak healthy things into the food he made her was any indication, she knew he had the potential to be much better. Except, he wasn’t, this morning. Not that the sleight of hand was bad; it didn’t happen at all. She’d watched him make pancakes plenty of times. There were the ingredients she was supposed to see him add, and the ones she wasn’t, like in a magic show. She did, of course. He might be decent, but decent wasn’t good enough to fool _her_ , but that was part of the fun. She liked his little misdirections, and the mystery; they made the food as special as Eliot kept insisting it was. Today, those were missing.

But if she told him, if he knew she knew...it wouldn’t be the same.

“No,” she said, far too delayed to make it believable. Eliot raised his eyebrows.

“Yeah? ‘Cause you ain’t tried to steal batter once.” Dammit. He was right. Details like that were important. _When lying. Neither of us are lying. Are we?_

“Are you lying?” The moment the word existed in the space between them, rather than just in her own head, she knew it wasn’t the right one. Maybe this was why Alec used so many words. Eventually he’d hit on the correct one, by shear probability.

The whisk paused for a moment, then started up again. That oddly familiar and completely foreign smile settled into place. “Lyin’ about what?”

He didn’t sound angry, or insulted, and Eliot had a lot of feelings about lying, so he should have been. The back of her neck itched again.

“Parker?” Still not Eliot. “Parker!” There. That was better. _Why is it better?_ The smile, the _softness_ of weird Eliot had wavered for a moment, and she’d almost caught hold of what was bothering her, and it wasn’t just the not-special pancakes.

“Hey man, those burning?” Hardison emerged, smelling like one those fruity washes he’d finally stopped pretending he was buying for her. She never used them—the last thing a thief needed when crawling through vents were guards wondering where the “tropical sunset” smell was coming from.

He slid behind Eliot, closer than he would have before last night, but not pausing to envelop him in a hug, like she knew he wanted to. _Letting him make the first move._

“You can smell anything over whatever the hell you dunked yourself in?” Eliot taunted, falling into the habit of sniping at Hardison like nothing had changed, and she lost hold of whatever she’d almost grasped. “The first ones always do. I’ll take ‘em.” Today she wanted the charcoal bitterness under the maple syrup, but Eliot was being Eliot at the moment, so she didn’t object.

“Hey, it’s called ‘ _Sweet Pea_ , with a hint of luscious raspberry, and a soft _musk_.’” Hardison enunciated the words elaborately, opening a cupboard to pull out plates and glasses. He passed them to her with a wink, before brushing against Eliot on his way to the fridge.

She watched, fascinated, as Eliot swallowed, a blush crawling up his throat, and his voice gained a bit of a rasp. “You better be gettin’ out the OJ, not your soda crap, and _seriously? A soft musk?_ ”

And there was Eliot. Not quite standard Eliot, who’d slammed that hunger of his behind vault doors two feet thick, but still familiar. That was Alec’s magic at work. He reached over the counter to pass her a handful of silverware, casually in Eliot’s space again. “Yes, a soft musk, and you wish you smelled this fine.”

“It doesn’t smell anything like sweet peas, Hardison. The-there’s a freshness to them.” He licked his lips. “Somethin’ a little sharper.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. It’s a very ‘distinctive’ smell.” He inhaled, audibly, standing behind Eliot, just out of easy reach.

Eliot gave in to the taunts and the touches; handling both by turning and shoving Alec up against the fridge, kissing him hard and hungry.

 _So who has the control?_ She stole the burnt pancakes as she studied the two of them.

During breakfast, she let them do most of the talking and touching, using their distraction to lift pieces of pancake and strawberries off their plates and drown them in nutella and maple syrup. They weren’t quite as special as they usually were, but food tasted better when stolen, regardless. Eliot kept adding more strawberries to his plate, and Alec, who could almost match her for speed when inhaling a meal, kept dallying over his last pancake, neatly cut into pieces. They made it too easy.

“What are we doing today?” she asked, knowing Hardison wouldn’t answer.

Eliot hesitated until Alec shrugged noncommittally. “Got some errands to run. You said you had an idea? For somethin’ better than the phone?” He said it in a rush, like she did when she practiced a line too much before using it on a mark.

 _If the phone works, it works_ , he’d said last night, and maybe he had seen Hardison’s frustration then. _Maybe it’s us. Maybe we made Eliot weird._

“Yeah. I do.” Hardison’s face split into a relieved grin.

“Thanks.” Eliot nodded, rubbed his palms on his knees. “Parker, you wanna come with?”

 

\----

 

He’d called them a taxi by the time she’d gotten dressed, even though they had Lucille and a few other more nondescript cars parked out back. That made little sense, but Alec had said to let Eliot take lead, so she said nothing as Eliot told the driver where to go, the address two streets away from his house.

Eliot didn’t invite her on errands. 

Sometimes, he’d use it as an excuse. _I have errands to run, Parker_ , and his voice would rub like rope in a too tight slip knot, pulling in an attempt to free itself.

If it was related to a job, that was different. He still had rules— _I drive. Quit changing the station. Don’t steal that. If you’re gonna steal that, show me so I can pay for it.—_ but they were professionals on a job, then. “Errands” never involved his house.

_You think we vampires or somethin? You invite us once and we can come back anytime?_

_Yeah, Hardison, I think you’re a vampire. That’s definitely it. Ain’t got nothin to do with havin’ any damn privacy. Vampires._

_I am not a vampire!_

_Nah, cause if you were, I’d still have cereal in my cupboard, Parker._

That had been in Boston, and yes, she had broken in and eaten his cereal, even though it was Raisin Bran. If you put enough sugar on top, you could fix that. Anyway, Hardison had been playing with his orc friends that night and her head felt too empty and quiet, which cereal helped with, since it wasn’t a quiet food. And Eliot helped too, because when she broke into his apartment, he usually wasn’t quiet either.

She never invited them over to her places, because they were _hers._

After they’d come to Portland, she’d followed him home one night, not for any particular reason, except that she’d wanted to see where he lived. Wanted to watch him live. Dark clothes, binoculars, and a helpfully placed tree across the street were all she needed for that level of surveillance. She’d found herself returning at irregular intervals, just to watch. She’d never broken in, not to this house, though she couldn’t get a firm grasp on why. Eventually, she’d begun to plan.

“I know where we are,” she told him after they got out of the cab. The admission felt necessary now that those plans had run their course.

“I figured.” Still no edge. He should be irritated at her, that she’d spied on him, but he didn’t even sound resigned. Just calm acceptance. Tiny drops of rain spattered the shoulders of the hoodie he’d layered over his shirt as he led her down an alley, eyes scanning the area constantly.

She slipped her hand into his, so she wouldn’t forget to move at current Eliot speed and make him nervous by running ahead.

He stopped at a plain, wooden gate, the type that would have a padlock on the inside latch. “You gonna make me dig out a key?”

He wasn’t asking that, exactly. The gate was tall enough that either of them would have to stand on tiptoe to reach the lock on the other side. Easy enough for her, currently unpleasant for Eliot.

She didn’t ask why they hadn’t just gone to the front of the house. Eliot would have his reasons: varying his entry points, disguising injuries, keeping her away from the curious eyes of his neighbors. These were all standard precautions. She pulled out her lock picks, and rather than stand on tiptoe, easily hoisted herself over the wall. She heard Eliot’s phone buzz as she did so. _Motion sensors._ The padlock itself was basic, barely worth the name. It wasn’t meant to keep anyone out, just give them a slight delay, while Eliot got into position, if he was home. If not—nothing essential would be stashed here, it could all be abandoned without a moment’s notice if he had to run.

She let him through the gate, just like any other job. This, like the bickering this morning and his security measures, felt familiar, felt right, and she turned around to survey the backyard for the first time.

Eliot had said he grew his own food, but in Boston it hadn’t been at his apartment. She hadn’t seen a need to consider it further. She still stole food, sometimes, to prove to herself she could, that whatever happened, she would not starve. Not again. But where the food came from before it was in her hands and in her belly, was of little concern.

Not to Eliot. He’d been teaching her about food for months now, though she’d never given much thought to where he got ingredients from. She loved watching the way his fingers curled to avoid the knife blade, and the way it would ring slightly when he hit it right. She loved stealing tastes and him asking her what she thought it needed. He’d have her sniff all the spices, taste them blind, matching scent to the warmth on her tongue. This knowledge had little function to her, but she’d liked gathering it, even if it didn’t make her a better thief. Except for stealing a smile from him. A real one.

Now, she understood how much information she could have gleaned from that small fact about Eliot. How large of an idea it encompassed. The entire backyard was filled with neat rows of beds, as orderly and organized as her warehouse. Beside her, Eliot surveyed them, reminding her of Hardison cooing over some new tech.

She felt rooted to the spot, just like Eliot’s plants, in their riot of variety and order. She wanted to step forward, run through the rows, smell leaves, and steal some of the tiny, bright red fruits that hung heavy from a caged stem.

_Why is it caged?_

“Why are you punishing them?”

Eliot’s pride shifted to confusion and shock. “Punishing?”

She pointed. “You put them in cages. They can’t run, so why?”

He took her hand, pulled her forward. “It’s not—that’s not the—” He paused. “It’s for support. The tomatoes need the cage to support them as they grow. Otherwise the weight of the fruit will break the stems. Make sense?”

“It’s a brace.”

“Yup. A brace.”

She reached a hand out to a small sphere, liking the way it started green and tinged red.

“Don’t.”

She snatched her hand back. “Sorry.” This was Eliot’s food, and if Hardison got protective about his tech, then Eliot would be even worse about plants that made food.

“I didn’t mean—you can pick ‘em, just choose a ripe tomato. Bright red. Or yellow, if you move down a few plants. The ones with green still on ‘em ain’t sweet yet. You won’t like ‘em.”

She chose a bright red, tiny globe and popped it into her mouth, her tongue registering bits of grit on the smooth skin, before she bit down and juice exploded, some of it escaping past her lips. She giggled, and Eliot grinned in satisfaction.

“What else is ripe?” The drizzle of rain had become more insistent, but she didn’t want to leave yet, even if it was just to go inside, explore the rest of Eliot’s life.

He nodded at the back patio. “Go grab two baskets. We’ll take some stuff back with us.”

She returned with the baskets, and they walked up and down the rows. He let her do the picking, gave instructions, and handed her a knife for cutting some of the herbs. She memorized the names and smells, intensified by the rain: cherry tomatoes, and larger ones, including a deep purple variety that he called a Russian Krim.

“Don’t you fight enough of those already?”

“Yeah, but with different knives, preferably.”

Bell peppers in shades of yellow and red, zucchinis, eggplants, butternut squash, and something he promised really was called spaghetti squash, though it looked nothing like spaghetti. He made her knock on the outside and tell him if she thought it was hollow. She did, listening as carefully as she would to the tumblers of a safe, and determined it was (probably). Two of them went into a basket.

“Does it make spaghetti?”

“If I make it make spaghetti, will you eat it?”

“Can you make it make pizza?”

“. . . yeah, I can do that.”

Another row had herbs: rosemary, thyme, dill, parsley, cilantro, and mint, which she plucked and chewed and decided it tasted _furrier_ than the peppermint candies.

Against a wall, he showed her a trellis, pointing out running beans, grapes, and pea pods. “Now these are real sweet peas.”

She took the pod he offered her and watched as he bit into his, shell and all. That seemed weird, but she copied him, surprised at the slight sharpness of the pod and the burst of the peas on her tongue.

“They’re not that sweet.”

“Sweet as you, Sweet Pea.” He grinned, shameless, like he did when he was flirting. He’d called her _sweetheart_ earlier and it had tasted sour, but this name mixed in her mind with the smell of Hardison, the bitter and sweet of the peas still on her tongue, and the name she’d chosen for herself.

He blinked as she kissed him, lifting his thumb to brush raindrops across her cheek. Only then did she notice that they were both soaked. Eliot shifted, using their closeness to lean on her, and she pulled away enough to see the tightness around his eyes.

Her stomach lurched, but not in the familiar sweet drop, rope spooling out behind her. Then, she wasn’t leaping into nothingness, as Hardison seemed to imagine. She was leaping into gravity, and wind resistance, and velocity, and momentum. She was taking those rules and bending herself around their edges and if she failed that was her fault, her choice, her death on her terms.

 _It’s not that simple anymore._ She shoved away the single _bang_ that echoed down the tunnel as she ran from the subway car. _It was that simple. It has to be that simple. That’s what makes us, us. But if Eliot’s not Eliot and I’m not me, then what are we?_ Just because Eliot could bend himself around the velocity and momentum of a punch, of a bullet, just because he did it on his terms, didn’t mean she was ready for the consequences.

She had been. But she’d changed. They’d changed, and maybe it had been together, but that didn’t mean it was the same.

“I think we have enough,” she said, her voice steadier than her thoughts or Eliot’s balance, but she knew the pause had definitely been too long that time. She couldn’t read his face, kept focusing on one piece and losing the whole. _The entire morning’s been like that,_ she realized, which didn’t make her feel any better, just added to the tangle of thoughts and worries and feelings that twisted in the pit of her stomach.

Eliot nodded as she stepped back, turned, and walked toward the house without waiting for him, the lingering taste of sweet pea becoming bitter in her mouth. She stopped by the door, because if she didn’t need to break in, he went first, that was the rule and following one of his rules stabilized her a bit. He moved past her and she followed him into the laundry room, setting down her basket to begin shedding her sopping clothes.

Eliot didn’t turn around, which was another rule. She paused, feeling her tenuous stability begin to crumble. “You never watched me before.”

That earned her a frown. “We weren’t—”

“No, but neither does Hardison. Both of you turn around.”

“When we’re on a job, we’re on a job. I ain’t gettin distracted by . . .” he trailed off, eyes bright as he studied her. “D’you want me to turn around?”

_What I want, I steal._

She stepped in close again, taking the basket he’d forgotten he was holding and setting it down. Her fingers were cold and still streaked with mud, but he didn’t complain as she unzipped the hoodie, methodically stripping off the wet layers.

If she wanted, they would have sex here, backed up against the dryer, her legs straddling Eliot’s hips, while he ignored the screaming of his thigh. She’d climbed him last night and he’d let her, and she hadn’t forgotten the wonder of that, even if Alec had made her get down with reasonable concerns about bullet holes and kitchen staff. They could continue here, away from Hardison’s anxious protectiveness. Eliot was certainly ready, she observed, and if the rest of today was any indication, he was willing.

 _Isn’t that what Alec said not to do? This is why I need to be careful_.

She stepped back, picked up the baskets, and walked past him, into the kitchen.

He followed, both words and feet stumbling slightly. “Parker, am I getting some wires crossed?”

She set her load down. “Hardison’s the expert, not me.” It sounded angrier than she’d thought she was, because she wasn’t at all. She didn’t know what she was, what Eliot was, what was okay and what wasn’t. She liked pretzels because pretzels didn’t have strings attached, and she liked plans because they did and she could see them. But somehow Eliot’s pretzels were wrong and she didn’t have a plan to fix them, to fix him. Maybe he wasn’t the broken one. Maybe it was her, still. Always.

She didn’t like the dirt on her hands anymore, and washed them hurriedly in the sink, before stalking down the hallway. It took him seven seconds to cover the distance she covered in three, and she’d found his bedroom, his closet, his sweatshirts, pulled a big, warm one over her head, before turning to face him, the hood pressing her wet hair against her neck, but somehow warm and comforting at the same time. It smelled like him.

Eliot leaned against the door jam, watching her. “I dunno what’s going on, but you wanna toss me one of those and a pair of sweats? Boxers in the top drawer are clean, if you want some bottoms.”

She scowled at him, but grabbed the items and lobbed them at his head. He caught them, awkwardly, still studying her as she pulled on the boxers before walking past him out of the room.

She found herself in the living room, which held a surprising number of bookshelves and very little that was breakable. She didn’t see any weapons, as she made a circuit of the area, before plopping down on the beat up leather sofa. Probably tucked away, in easy reach. She’d just jumped up again, too jittery to keep still, when he limped back into the room.

“What’s wrong, Parker?” 

“You are!”

“The hell are you talking about?” At least he sounded irritated. That was familiar ground.

“You’re wrong. You’ve been wrong all day.”

“ _I’ve_ been wrong?! You’re the one who’s been weird!”

She tossed her head, dismissing that as irrelevant. “You always think I’m weird. You’re being nonstandard levels of Eliot weird.”

“Glass houses, darlin’. You can’t stop starin’, but don’t want to be caught doin’ it. Can’t quit touchin’, but don’t go further. Keep startin’ and stoppin’ like Hardison tryin’ to jump off a building.” He shrugged. “It’s a very distinctive weird.”

He could have point, but she didn’t like being compared to Hardison’s fear of heights and anyway Eliot hated riding rigs as well, so he didn’t get to say that, and besides this wasn’t about _her_. “Well, maybe I’m being weird, ‘cause you’re being wrong!” she snapped. “You didn’t yell at me for staying up, or drawing on you for half the night, and instead of telling me to stop poking you, you asked me to do it _more_ and you made me pancakes the way I said, instead of the sneaky way you usually make them, so they didn’t taste as good, and you invited me on errands, and asked Hardison for tech, and didn’t get mad when I told you I’d spied on you, and brought me here!” She flung her arm out in frustration, indicating the small, neat house that felt nothing like her warehouses or the brewpub, but so very much like Eliot. 

Eliot stared at her for a moment. “You didn’t like the pancakes?”

She ignored that. Getting Eliot started on food was like getting Hardison started on computers. “I know I’m bad at people okay? I know you and Alec are good at faces and talking and what hands are supposed to do when they aren’t lifting a wallet or a phone, and I’m not good at those things. But people are hard, and you’re usually not hard, so you’re not people, but this morning you were! All smiles and emptiness and not Eliot.”

“I smile!”

“Not like that. Not—” She bit her lip, starting to pace again as she ordered the line of thought into something with structure, a knot that held when she tested it. “You smile like that on a grift. To be small and nonthreatening, so you don’t scare normal people.”

His expression shifted briefly again, and she still couldn’t define it. Alec would probably have known, but Alec wasn’t here, and even if she couldn’t read him, she knew something about this. About not fitting right. Eliot was better at fitting than her, because he was better at cutting off different parts of himself.

 _Coo, coo, there’s blood in the shoe…_ her brain offered, without attaching a reference tag or anything remotely useful. _Focus._

“You don’t scare us. Not ever. Except today you’re scaring me because you’re all empty, like you cracked open and drained yourself out to make room for us. And I’m scared that I made you do it!”

He sucked in a sharp breath at that. “I ain’t an egg, Parker, and you didn’t make me do nothin’.” He shifted and grimaced. “Can we talk this out on the couch?”

“Eliot wouldn’t ask,” she informed Eliot, who rolled his eyes and tipped backward in a controlled fall toward the big, lumpy leather cushions. She sat down more cautiously, as he gritted his teeth and pulled his legs up to stretch out lengthwise. When she didn’t say anything, he sighed and reached out his good arm, reeling her in. “C’mere.”

She hesitated a second before relenting and lying down beside him. “You don’t have to be nice. We still love you when you’re grumpy.”

“You’re sayin’ I should be meaner?”

“You’re not mean. You’re Eliot.” Mean people didn’t offer to kill for her, cook for her, catch her, shield her, and boost her. They didn’t charge men with guns, try to rescue her from a Steranko, then help her beat it. They didn’t tell her it was okay to be whatever she was, and she was important because of it. Eliot did, and his grumbling didn’t change that. Nestled into the crook of his shoulder, his arm supporting her spine so she couldn’t fall off the edge of the couch, everything steadied. She could hear the regular thump of his heart in his chest and wondered if he’d let Alec record that sound, for the times she couldn’t lie this close.

“You should be Eliot. Not what you think we want Eliot to be. That’s pretzels.”

He was silent for a long moment. “The Eliot you’re thinkin’ of, you and him ever do this?”

“The Eliot I’m thinking of wouldn’t refer to himself in third person,” she pointed out. “And no, he had rules about cuddling.”

“He did. He had rules about a lot of things. He thought they were necessary to protect the team. And himself. And he had a lot of practice at following rules. And justifying it as protection.”

“I tricked him into breaking those rules.”

“Tricked m—I mean him?”

“Manipulated. Grifted. Conned.”

Eliot let out a long breath. “Look, Parker, I ain’t denyin’ that your plans are startin’ to give Nate a run for his money, but you didn’t con me into loving you. Or Alec. And the fact that you two knew I was interested tells me I was breaking my own rules without you doing a damn thing.”

“Like only hugging people when you’re drugged or oxygen deprived.”

He cleared his throat, embarrassed.

“I analyzed your weaknesses and used them,” she continued, because she was proud of figuring that much out, at least.

“I seem to remember teachin’ you to do that when we spar.”

“You let me win when we spar. Sometimes.” She paused. “Oh.”

“Maybe I just like losin’ to you.” His flirty-grift voice was back. 

She rolled her eyes. “You hate losing almost as much as I do.”

“Almost. But…the thing I’d hate losing the most is you and Alec.” She could feel his heart rate increase as he said it, the blush heating up his skin. _He’s nervous. Like when he had to sing in front of people. He’s scared of saying the feelings stuff aloud. Just like me._ “That’s why I said yes, and I’ll keep sayin’ yes, ‘cause it feels good after a whole pile of no.”

“You can say no.” She wanted that clear. Exit routes were important.

“’Course I can, I’m a damn expert at it. I just don’t feel like it currently.” He kissed the top of her head.

Parker released a breath and with it went the swirl of anxieties and guesswork she’d been spinning in. It felt good to let them all go. “Why are we here? What’s the errand?”

“Packing.”

“You’re coming? _Home?_ ” 

“If you’ll have me. Haven’t asked Hardison, ‘cause I wanna see the look on his face.”

“He’s not a quiet thinker.”

“Screamin’ camel, that one.” He gave her a squeeze. “Well?”

“What about this place?”

“I’ll keep it. It’s attached to a solid alias and the garden’s takin’ off nicely. No point in battling traffic to get to the pub though. I’m there more’n I’m here anyway.”

She smiled at the practical reasons he was listing. “It’s a good plan. Not why you’re doing it though.”

“Nah, that’d be ‘cause some crazy thief stole a kiss.” He kissed her to make the point.

“And then a hacker breached your firewalls,” she said and returned it.

“Mmmmm. Some team I’m part of. An’ don’t worry, next time Hardison’s an idiot, I’ll yell at him like always.” His eyes were half-lidded and he had the stupidest smile on his face and she made the executive decision that neither of them were moving for at least an hour and implemented it by going to sleep.

 

She woke briefly, to find Eliot’s face slack, his breathing regular. She felt it, some time later, when his breath hitched and shifted, so she slipped her free hand beneath his sweatshirt and began to draw patterns on his skin.

“Parker, you wanna tell me why you have the inner rings of the Pentagon memorized?”

“Not unless you want to tell me why you recognize it.”

“Fair enough.” He groaned, low and content. “Hardison’s gotta be wonderin’ where we got to.”

“I’ll call him.” She extricated herself reluctantly from Eliot’s side and went to find her phone while he hauled himself up into sitting position, wincing as he bent his leg.

“We’re going to need to check that.”

“Last time you took off my pants was a bit of a let down, sweet pea.” He finger-combed his hair and did that thing he thought was a wink, but wasn’t.

“Your hair is stupid,” she told Eliot, right as Hardison answered.

“Please don’t tell me that’s some kinda code for you being kidnapped, cause if it is, I don’t remember that conversation, but I don’t have enough hair for you to be makin’ that kinda judgment call.” After an afternoon of talking only to Eliot, the flood of words took a moment to process.

“Eliot’s hair is stupid. Yours is inconsequential.” Eliot glared at her, so she put Hardison on speaker before he could respond.

“Thanks, babe, that makes me feel so much better. When will you be back? ‘Cause, uh, I _may_ have run into some mattress-related difficulties.”

“Hardison, you don’t get to brag about breakin’ a bed if you do it alone.”

“Do you hear me bragging? Stupid thing ain’t worth the goddamn—”

“Come over here.” He didn’t, she noticed, mention where _here_ was.

“Di—did I just hear that correctly?” And Hardison didn’t ask.

“There’s a perfectly fine, _normal_ mattress here without any stupid embedded electronics.”

“You can help us pack!” She bounced back down on the couch beside Eliot.

“ _PACK?!?!_ ” She heard a crash and Hardison’s next words sounded oddly distant. “I’m on my way!”

“Screaming camel,” Eliot muttered as he ended the call, and she could hear the amusement in his tone. He leaned back against her, heavy and solid and real. “Need to make dinner. Bet ya anything he’ll have forgotten to eat lunch.”

“We forgot to eat lunch too.”

“Hate t’tell ya, darlin’, but you ate about 3 servings of vegetables earlier.” She could hear the satisfied smirk in his voice. “What’d’ya think? Manipulation, grift, or con?”

She glared at him, though he couldn’t see it. “It’s not the same.”

“You need vegetables and I... I need the two of you, so I’m gonna call us even.” He’d been going for casual and missed it by enough that she noticed easily, but that was okay, now that she understood. Eliot liked charging into scary things, once he’d assessed the situation. This was just him doing that. She ran her fingers through his hair, shorter now than she was used to, stopping to scratch gently behind his ear, like she would a dog or cat. He reacted in the same way, leaning into her hand and humming deep in his chest, where she could feel it vibrate. 

Her phone vibrated as well, showing the beginning of a message from Hardison: “4 P ONLY.” She snatched the phone off Eliot’s leg, not that Eliot was particularly focused on the screen, while her fingers explored his scalp.

“Mmm?”

The rest of the text read: “need el cuff thing. cn u lift? Dont tell.” Well, that was practically insulting. She forgave him this once, and texted back one-handed: “Back alley, 15 mins.” She wasn’t sure what he was going to do with one of Eliot’s leather cuffs, but he’d probably bring Lucille and need a little time. “Alec says he’ll be here in about half an hour.”

“Woulda thought he was high tailin’ it here, from all the yelling and crashing. ‘Least that gives us time to start the sauce.” He sat up, somewhat reluctantly, and she did the same, hopping to her feet and offering a hand to pull him up.

“Us?”

“You wanted spaghetti squash pizza, you get to help me figure out how to make it, mastermind.”

As Eliot started doing the sizzle thing (olive oil, onions, garlic), she headed down the hall, making sure she was out of sight before pausing to open and close the bathroom door, then continuing to Eliot’s bedroom. A quick rustle through his top drawer turned up a few different cuffs and she chose one that was soft and plain, tucking it away. Back down the hall with a quick stop to slip into the bathroom, shut the door, flush the toilet and run the sink before returning to the kitchen.

She had a good ten minutes before Hardison would be looking in the alley, but Eliot gave her an opportunity immediately, sending her out to the garden for three more tomatoes— _romas, red, three inches long, not quite a sphere_. The rain had slowed again, and the garden smelled alive. Unsure of the sensitivity of the motion sensors, she waited until a bird swooped low over the wall, to lob the cuff into the alley.

The romas hung on their plant. She traced the wire of the brace, smearing water droplets that hung there as she studied the way the branches rested. Lifting a branch to pick a tomato, she was surprised by how heavy it was. Without the brace, it would have broken.

Eliot was staring into his pan of browning garlic and onions, a million miles away when she came back in with the tomatoes. He started, glancing up at her.

“Something wrong?”

He shook his head and took the tomatoes from her, washed them, and sliced them into large chunks, before tossing them in a round machine with sharp blades at the bottom. “Just been a helluva twenty-four hours.” The machine roared to life, forestalling any response, and she watched the tomatoes she’d just plucked get shredded into pulp.

“The sphinx you like,” he said, after the blades stopped whirring.

“What about it?”

He poured the red soupy mixture into a pot on the stove and started reaching for the herbs they’d picked. “You ever read about that statue? Take a tour?”

“Why would I?” She frowned. “You did?”

He grinned. “After hours. Dated a docent.”

Of course he had. She folded her arms. “Did she take you to the temple to make out?”

“How did you—”

“Probably have a rotating schedule. There was _always_ something going on in the temple after hours. Made it easy to explore.” She shrugged. “Guards on duty left that area alone so they didn’t disturb whoever was there. Tell me about the sphinx.”

He snagged a sprig of something with small, green leaves and stripped it. “Several cultures have sphinxes, but the best known are Greek or Egyptian, right?”

She nodded. “One tells riddles.”

“That’s the Greek, they’re depicted as women, probably ‘cause men think they’re mysterious and confusing.” He waggled his eyebrows at her.

“I have a riddle. What do you call a smug criminal going down stairs?”

“Your answer, my answer, or the right answer?” he asked. He’d finished adding other things to the pot and now he held out a spoon for her to taste.

“My answer’s the right answer. The regular answer’s just boring.” The spoonful tasted like tomato, mostly. “This sauce is boring too.”

“The sauce ain’t done yet, needs time to cook down, let the ingredients come together.” He grabbed the spaghetti squashes, sliced off the end, and cut each in half, lengthwise. “Scrape out the stringy bits and seeds,” he ordered, “and put the halves on this tray when you’re done. And your answer’s ‘an idiot, ‘cause a rig’s faster’."

She grinned and picked up a spoon. “See? _Much_ better than ‘a condescending con descending’, which is what Hardison said. What’s your answer?”

“Nate.”

She burst out laughing as he continued. “But your sphinx, sweet pea, is not a Greek sphinx. It’s Egyptian. Egyptian sphinxes were usually men. They served as guards in the afterlife. That one you like is an exception. _She_ wears the face of Hatshepsut, a powerful pharaoh who declared herself a king and ruled wisely.” He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Suits you.”

The doorbell rang, signaling Hardison’s arrival, and Eliot limped off to let him in, leaving her standing in the kitchen, heart pounding at what her knight had just said.

By the time Hardison, already talking a mile a minute (asking Eliot—for the third or fourth time probably—if he meant it about staying with them, and he’d brought Lucille so he could bring whatever he wanted, and did his house have any rules, ‘cause his Nana always made him ask that when he slept over), came into the kitchen, she’d shunted the implications of what Eliot had said to the side to be examined carefully later, and was scraping out the fourth and final half of squash. The others were already laid neatly face down on the baking sheet.

“You sure I shouldn’t be takin’ my shoes off or someth—Babe, you’re _cooking_?” He came over and lifted one of the halves, perplexed.

“Eliot says it’s a spaghetti squash pizza, though it doesn’t look anything like spaghetti or pizza. And I’m spooning.”

“One of my favorite activities,” Hardison teased as she placed the last half on the tray and glanced at Eliot, who jerked his head at the oven, completely ignoring Alec’s hint.

“Already preheated. Needs about forty-five minutes. Sauce oughta be done about the same time.” 

She slid the tray in the oven as Hardison sniffed at the bubbling sauce before stepping back slightly to give Eliot room to stir the pot. He winked at her as Eliot straightened and found himself inside Alec’s embrace. “Well, if we’ve got some time to kill, we should test your present,” he murmured.

Alec hadn’t done that with her, not at first. He’d always stood in front of her, let her make the first move, to step closer, or, frequently in the beginning, jump out a window instead. With Eliot, he approached from behind, eradicating his personal space into nothingness. She would have hated that early on. But each time he did it, the lag time of Eliot’s hesitation shrank by a fraction of a second before he relaxed into his arms and his invitation. This time was no different. Hardison swayed slightly as he caught Eliot’s arm and attached the cuff.

Eliot’s glance shot up to her, and she basked in his irritation. “Thief!”

“I asked her to steal one. Needed something you like wearing,” Alec explained, wrapping his arms back around Eliot’s waist.

“And you did what to it, exactly?”

“It monitors your heart rate. So I’d turn it off before you go all punchy on someone. Or the next time you see Sterling.”

“Y—you didn’t have to invent that. It already exists.”

“You know what, I’m gonna be gracious and ignore the implication that you’re trying to teach me about tech.” He turned Eliot’s wrist over and pressed down on the cuff. “Now give it a moment to learn your resting heart rate, and then we’ll test it.”

“How the hell am I s’posed to test it? Run around the block?” He shifted weight off his injured leg to make the point. “And why? My heart rate increases and it what, beeps at me?”

“Nah, when I gutted the dog shock collar, I removed that function, made it too bulky.”

“The WHAT.”

 _The WHAT!?_ She bounced slightly. “I want one!”

“Why the hell—”

“Shock collars are programmed to sense the dog’s barking, and typically have a cycle of settings, beginning with a warning beep, then a vibrate setting, then a mild shock, then a harder one. I took out the microphone and speaker, used a heart rate monitor pad instead and reprogrammed the timing and the—”

“You test this on gummy frogs first?”

“See now, admitting you were listening to me years back when I told you that is both sweet and oh so dangerous, man.”

“Shut up, I don’t listen to everything you say, just the useful shit.”

“And see how useful knowing the resistance of human skin is right now? Knowledge is power, baby!”

“It’s for a DOG, Hardison.”

“Exactly! You’re at least two dogs.” She looked him up and down. “Big dogs. Rowf!”

“Parker’s right, it ain’t gonna hurt, just give your brain an outside stimulus. And I did not test this on gummy worms, I tested it on _me_.”

Hardison didn’t like pain, which either meant it barely hurt, or he was brave enough to test it for Eliot. And Eliot probably got that, but maybe he didn’t get the other possibilities. Or maybe he did and bickering with Hardison was just an ingrained habit. Or maybe he didn’t like this idea.

“Eliot,” she said, in the sharp voice that could cut through his and Alec’s nonstop nonsense. “Yes or no.”

Behind him, Hardison opened his mouth, but apparently thought better of it before letting anything escape. She stayed focused on Eliot, willing him to understand that he needed to help her here, that she was tired of guessing and scared of getting it wrong. This was a different kind of protection, but maybe, if he understood it like that, it would make it easier.

“Yes,” he said finally and gave her a nod.

She stepped forward and kissed him hard. Behind him, Alec smirked and bent his head, slowly working his lips up Eliot’s neck to his ear, his voice shifting lower as he continued his explanation. “Dreaming increases your heart rate, so I set a reasonably high threshold. When your heart rate climbs past it, due to a bad dream or outside stimuli, the device will vibrate.” Alec whispered, a slight hiss of air directly into the ear he was currently nibbling on. Eliot inhaled audibly, and she slipped her fingers beneath his sweatshirt, tracing patterns, blueprints of his house, the brewpub, the places they shared. He shuddered against her as Hardison ran his tongue down Eliot’s neck, hovering on his pulse. “Wait for it . . .” he breathed.

The cuff went off, vibrations pulsing Eliot’s wrist at the small of her back. Impulsively she squeezed her thighs around his injured one, keeping her feet firmly planted on the floor and pressing into the hardness of his groin with her hip.  Hardison murmured something about “stage two,” but it was lost beneath Eliot’s sharp gasp. She could feel his pulse throughout her, hammering now, and she had no intention of letting it slow.

Eliot went rigid as the cuff shocked him and she giggled at the transferred sting of it, running her tongue along his jaw, to catch his earlobe between her teeth, her breasts pressing hard against the wound in his shoulder. His breath heaved hot and ragged in her ear.

Hardison, his breathing less than even himself, pulled back. “Technically, it should wake ya before you start sweating, the capacity of human skin to resist ohms drops drastically when wet, so the shock will be sharp—Parker!”

She held up the cuff she’d liberated from Eliot’s wrist and slipped on her own. “My turn!”

“Babe, this ain’t really what I meant this—”

Eliot growled, turning slightly to grab him by the back of his neck and pull him in. The rotation pressed his thigh into her crotch again and she tightened her muscles, relishing the low moan that escaped him. On her wrist, the cuff pulsed and she caught her bottom lip in her teeth in anticipation.

Alec’s breath jagged. “You know what, I’m gonna shut up now.”

Eliot, pressed between the two of them, grinned. “Best thief and the smartest man I know.”

 

 

_THE END._

 

 

 

 

I really really really love the Metropolitan Museum of Art, especially the arms and armory (and the screaming camel), so in case anyone's curious:

**Author's Note:**

> This all started because of a stupid pretzel cart and now I've spent the better part of a year messing around in the headspaces of these dorks. Thanks guys, for coming along for, as Eliot puts it, "a helluva twenty-four hours."


End file.
